


we, we’ve only got so much time

by PathButNotAPLan



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, I promise the ending is not sad, Slow Burn, They Both Die at the End AU, Young Love, it will break your heart but it will make you very happy, the slowburn happens in less than 24 hr but bear with me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25754866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PathButNotAPLan/pseuds/PathButNotAPLan
Summary: On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Josie Forbes and Hope Mikaleson to deliver some bad news: They’re going to die in less than twenty-four hours. Josie and Hope are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news is there’s an app for that. It’s called Last Friend, and through it, Hope and Josie meet up for one final epic adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.OrThey Both Die At The End au
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson & Josie Saltzman, Hope Mikaelson & Kaleb Hawkins, Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman, Maya Machado & Hope Mikaelson, Milton "MG" Greasley & Hope Mikaelson, Past Maya Machado/Hope Mikaelson, Penelope Park & Josie Saltzman
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	1. PART ONE Death-Cast

**Author's Note:**

> I basically just transcribed the book into Hosie because I thought the world deserved to see it, so most of the credit goes to Adam Silvera. Hope you like it anyways. I promise it not as sad at it sounds.

**September 5 2017**

**Josette Lucas Forbes-Laughlin**

**12:22 a.m**

Death-Cast is calling with the warning of a lifetime—Josie is going to die today. Forget that, “warning” is too strong a word since warning suggests something can be avoided, like a car honking at someone who’s crossing the street when it isn’t their light, giving them the chance to step back; this is more of a heads-up. The alert, a distinctive and endless gong, like a church bell one block away, is blasting from my phone on the other side of the room. She is freaking out already, a hundred thoughts immediately drowning out everything around her. She bets this chaos is what a first-time skydiver feels as they are plummeting out of a plane, or a pianist playing their first concert. Not that she would ever know for sure.

It’s crazy. One minute ago she was reading yesterday’s blog entry from  _ CountDowners _ —where Deckers chronicle their final hours through statuses and photos via live feeds, this particular one about a college junior trying to find a home for his golden retriever—and now she is going to die. 

She’s going to ... no … yes. Yes. 

Her chest tightens. She’s dying today.

She has always been afraid of dying. Josie doesn’t know why she thought this would jinx it from actually happening. Nor forever obviously but long enough so that she could grow up. Mom (Caroline, her other mom is dead) has been drilling it into her head that she should pretend  _ I’m the main character of a story that nothing bad ever happens to, most especially death, because the hero has to be around to save the day.  _ But the noise in her head is quieting down and there’s a Death-Cast herald on the other end of the phone waiting to tell her that she’s going to die today at eighteen years old. 

Wow, she’s actually…

She doesn’t want to pick up the phone. She’d rather run into Mom’s bedroom and curse into a pillow because she chose the wrong time to land herself in intensive care, or punch a wall because her Other Mom had marked her for an early death when she died giving birth to me (and had taken her twin with her, she was supposed to be called Lizzie, after their grandmother). The phone rings for what’s got to be the thirtieth time, and she can avoid it any more than she can avoid what;s going down sometime today. 

Josie slides her laptop of her crossed legs and gets up from the bed, swaying to the side, feeling really faint. She is like a zombie moving toward her desk, slow and walking-dead.

The caller ID reads DEATH-CAST, of course.

She is shaking but manages to press  _ Talk _ . She doesn’t say anything. She isn’t sure what to say. She just breaths because Josie has fewer than twenty-eight thousand breaths left in her—the average number of breaths a nondying person takes per day and she might as well use them up while she can.

“Hello, I’m calling from Death-Cast. I’m Isobel. You there, Alyssa?”

Alyssa

Her name isn’t Alyssa.

“You’ve got the wrong person,” She tells Isobel. Her heart settles down, even though she feels for this Alyssa person. She truly does. “My name is Josie, Josette” She got the name from her mother (the dead one anyway) and she wanted her to pass it down eventually. Now she can, if having a kid is a thing that happens for her.

Computer keys are tapping on Isobel ’s end, probably correcting the entry or something in her database. “Oh, apologies. Alyssa is the lady I just got off the phone with; she didn’t take the news very well, poor thing. You are Josette Saltzman, right?” 

And just like that, her last hope is obliterated.

“Josette, kindly confirm this is indeed you. I’m afraid I have many other calls to make tonight,”

She always imagined her herald—their official name, not hers—would be sympathetic and would ease her into this news, maybe even harp on how it’s especially tragic because she is so young. To be honest, Josie would’ve been okay with her being chipper, telling her how she should have fun and make the most of the day since at least she knows what’s going to happen. That way she is not stuck at home staring at a one-thousand-piece puzzles that she’s never finish or masturbating because sex with and actual person scares her. But this Herald makes her feel like Josie should stop wasting her time because, unlike her, she has so much of it.

“Okay. Josette is me. I’m Josie”

“Josette, I regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty-four hours you’ll be meeting an untimely death. And while there isn’t anything we can do to suspend that, you still have a chance to live” The herald goes one about how life isn’t always fair, then lists some events she could participate in today. Josie shouldn't be mad at her, but it's obvious she is reciting these lines that have been burned into her memory from telling them hundreds, maybe thousands, about how they’ll soon be dead. She has no sympathy to offer Josie. She’s probably filling her nails or playing tic-tac-toe against herself as she talks to Josie. 

On  _ CountDowners _ , Deckers post entries about everything from their phone call to how they’re spending their End Day. It’s basically Twitter for Deckers. She has read tons of feeds where Deckers admitted to asking their heralds how they would die, but it’s basic knowledge that those specifics aren’t available to anyone, not even former president Lockwood, who tried to hide from Death in an underground bunker four years ago and was assassinated by one of his own secret service agents. Death-Cast can only provide a date for when someone is going to die, not the exact minute or how it’ll happen.

“... Do you understand all of this?”

“Yeah.”

“Log on to death-cast.com and fill out any special requests you may have for your funeral in addition to the inscription you’d like engraved on your headstone. Or perhaps you would like to be cremated, in which case…”

She has only ever been to one funeral. Her grandmother died when she was seven and at the funeral Josie threw a tantrum because she wasn’t waking up. Fast-forward when Death-Cast came into the picture and suddenly everyone  _ was _ awake at their own funerals. Having the chance to say goodbye before you die is an incredible opportunity, but isn;t that time better spent living? Maybe she would feel differently if she could count on people showing up to her funeral. If she had more friends than she does fingers.

“And Alyssa, on behalf of everyone here at Death-Cast, we are so sorry to lose you. Live this day to the fullest, okay?”

“I’m Josie.”

“Sorry about that, Josette. I’m mortified, It’s been a long day and these calls can be so stressful and—”

Josie hangs up, which is rude, she knows, she knows. But she can’t listen to someone tell her what a stressful day it has been when she might drop dead in the next hour, or even the next ten minutes: she could choke on a cough drop; she could leave her apartment to do something with herself and fall down the stairs and snap her neck before she even makes it outside; someone could break in and murder her. The only thing she can confidently rule out is dying of old age. 

She sinks to the floor, on her knees. It’s all ending today and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it. Can’t journey across dragon-infested lands to retrieve scepters that can halt death. Can’t hop onto a flying carpet in search of a genie to grant her wish for a full and simple life. Maybe she could find some mad scientist to cryogenically freeze her, but changes are she’d die in the middle of that wacky experiment. Death is inevitable for everyone and it’s absolute for Josie today.

The list of people Josie will miss; if the dead can miss anyone, is short so she can’t even call it a list: there’s mom, for doing her best; my best friend Penelopee, not only for not ignoring her in the hallways, but for actually sitting down across from her in lunch, partnering with her in earth science and talk to Josie about how she wants to become an environmentalist who will save the world and Josie can repay her by living in it. And that’s it.

If someone were interested in her list of people she  _ won’t  _ miss, she’d have nothing for them. No one has ever wronged Josie. And she even gets why some people didn’t take a shot on her. Really, she does. She is such a paranoid mess. The few times Josie was invited to do something fun with classmates, like roller-skating in the park or going for a late drive at night, she bowed out because they  _ might  _ be setting themselves up for death,  _ maybe _ . Josie guesses what she’s going to miss the most are the wasted opportunities to live life and the lost potential to make great friends with everyone she sat next to for four years. She’ll miss how they never go to bond over sleepovers where everyone stayed up and played video games all night, all because she was too scared.

The number one person she’ll miss is Future Josie, who maybe loosened up and lived. It’s hard to picture her clearly, but she imagines Future Josie trying out new things, like smoking pot with friends, getting a driver's license and hopping on a plane to see her mother’s hometown. Maybe she’d be dating someone and maybe she likes that company. She probably plays piano for her friends and sings in front of them, and she would definitely have a crowded funeral service, one that would stretch over an entire week after he’s gone—one where the room is packed with new people who didn’t get the chance to hug her one last time. 

Future Josie would have a longer list of friends she’ll miss.

But Josie will never grow up to be Future Josie. No one will ever get high with her, no one will be her audience as she plays piano and no one will sit shotgun in her mom;s car after she gets her licence. She’ll never fight with friends over who gets the better bowling shoes or who will be Wolverine when they play video games.

Josie collapses back onto the floor, thinking how it’s do or die now. Not even that 

Do and then die.

  
  


**12:42 a.m**

  
  


Mom takes hot showers to cool down whenever she’s upset or disappointed in herself. Josie copied her around the time she turned thirteen because confusing Josie Thoughts surfaced and she needed tons of Josie Time to sort through them. Josie is showering now because she feels guilty for hoping the world, or some part of it beyond Penelope and her mom, will be sad to see her go. Because she refused to live invisibly on all the days she didn't get an alert. Josie wasted all those yesterdays and she’s completely out of tomorrows. 

She’s not going to tell anyone. Except for Mom, but she’s not even awake so it doesn’t really count. Josie doesn’t want to spend her last day wondering if people are being genuine when they throw sad words at her. No one should spend their hours second-guessing people.

She’s got to get out into the world, though, trick herself into thinking it is any other day. She has got to see Mom at the hospital and hold her hand for the first time since Josie was a kid and for what will be the last time… wow, the last time ever.

She’ll be gone before she can adjust to her mortality.

She also has to see Penelope and her one-year-old, Rowan. Penelope named her godmother when the baby was born, and it sucks how Josie is the person expected to take care of Rowan in case Penelope passes away since Penelope’s boyfriend, Jed, died a little over a year ago. Sure, how is an eighteen-year-old with no income going to take care of a baby? Short answer: She isn’t. But she was supposed to get older and tell Rowan stories of her world-saving mother and chill father and welcome her into Josie’s home when she was financially secure and emotionally prepared to do so. Now Josie is being whisked out of her life before she can become more than some girl in a photo album who Penelope may tell stories about, during which Rowan will nod her head, maybe make fun of Josie’s glasses and then flip the page to family she actually knows and cares about. Josie won’t even be a ghost to her. But that's no reason not to go tickle her one more time or wipe squash and green peas off her face, or give Penelope a little break so she can focus on studying for her GED or brush her teeth or comb her hair or take a nap. 

After that Josie will somehow pull herself away from her best friend and her daughter, and will have to go and live. 

She turns off the faucet and the water stops raining down on her: today isn’t the say for an hour shower. She grabs her glasses off the sink and puts them on. She steps out of the tub, slipping on a puddle of water, and while falling backward she is expecting to see if that theory of your life flashing before your eyes carries any truth when she grabs a hold of the towel rack and catches herself. She breathes in and out, in and out, because dying this way would be just an extremely unfortunate way to go; someone would add her to the “Shower KO” feed on the  _ DumbDeaths  _ blog, a high-traffic site that grosses her out on so many levels. 

Josie needs to get out of there and live but first she needs to make it out of this apartament alive.

  
  


**12:56 a.m**

She writes thank you notes to her neighbors in 4F and 4A, telling them it’s her End Day. With Mom in the hospital, Dorian in 4F has been checking in on her, bringing her dinner, especially since the stove has been busted for the past week after she tried making Mom’s lasagna. Matt in 4A was planning on stopping by on Saturday to fix the stove’s burner, but it’s not necessary anymore. Mom will know how to fix it and might need a distraction once Josie is gone.

She goes into her closet and pulls out the blue-and-grey flannel shirt Penelope got for her on her eighteenth birthday, then puts it over her white t-shirt. She hasn’t worn it outside yet. The shirt is how she keeps Penelope close today.

She checks on her watch—an old one of Mom’s she gave to Josie after buying a digital one that could glow, for her bad eyes—and it’s close to 1:00 a.m. On a regular day, she could be playing video games until late at night, even if it meant going to school exhausted. At least she could fall asleep during her free periods. She shouldn’t have taken those frees for granted. She should’ve taken another class, like art, even though she can’t draw to save her life. (Or do anything to save her life, obviously) Maybe she should’ve joined band and played piano, gotten some recognition before working her way up to singing in the chorus, then maybe a duet with someone cool, and then maybe braving a solo. Heck, even theater could have been fun if she had gotten to play a role that forced her to break out. But no, she has elected for another free period where she could shut down and nap.

It’s 12:58 a.m. When it hits 1:00 a.m Josie is forcing herself out of this apartment. It has been both her sanctuary and her prison and for once she needs to go breath the outside air instead of tearing through it to get from Point A to Point N. She has to count trees, maybe sing a favorite song while dipping her feet into the Hudson and just do her best to be remembered as the young woman who died too early.

It’s 1:00 a.m.

She can't believe she’s never returning to her bedroom.

She unlocks the front door, turns the knob and pulls the door open.

She shakes her head and slams the door shut.

Josie is not walking out into a world that will kill her before her time.


	2. Hope I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update because why not

**Hope Andrea Mikaelson**

**1:05 a.m**

Death-cast is calls Hope as she is beating her ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend to death. She is on top of him, pinning his shoulders down with her knees, and the only reason she's not clocking him in the eye again is because of the ringer coming from her pocket, that loud Death-Cast ringtone everyone knows too damn well either from personal experience, the news, or every shitty show using the alert for that  _ dun-dun-dun _ effect. Her boys, Kaleb and MG are no longer cheering on the beat-down. They’re dead quiet and Hope is waiting for this punk Landon’ phone to go off too. But nothing, just her phone. Maybe the call telling her she’s about to lose her life just saved his. 

“You gotta pick it up, Hope,” Mg says. He was recording the beat-down because watching fights online is his thing, but now he’s staring at his phone like he’s scared a call is coming for him too. 

“The hell I do,” Hope says. Her heart is pounding mad fast, even faster than when she first moved up on Landon, even faster than when she first decked him and laid him out. Landon’s left eye is swollen already, and there’s still nothing but pure terror in his right eye. These Death-Cast calls go strong until three. He doesn’t know for sure if Hope is about to take him down with her.

She doesn’t know either.

Her phone stops ringing

“Maybe it was a mistake,” Kaleb says.

Her phone rings again.

Kaleb stays shut. 

Hope wasn’t hopeful. (figures, huh) She doesn’t know stats or nothing like that, but Death-cast fucking up alerts isn’t exactly common news. And the Mikaelson haven’t exactly been lucky with staying alive. But meeting their maker ahead of time? They’re your guys.

She is shaking and that buzzing panic is in her head, like someone is punching her nonstop, because she has no idea how she’s gonna go, just that she is. And her life isn’t exactly flashing before her eyes, not that she expects it to later on when she’s actually at death’s edge. 

Landon squirms from underneath her and Hope raises her fist so he calms the hell down.

“Maybe he’s got a weapon on him,” Kaleb says. He’s the giant of our group, the kind of guy who would have been helpful to have around when her brother couldn’t get his seat belt off as their car flipped into the Hudson River. 

Before the call, Hope would have bet anything Landon doesn’t have any weapon on him, since they’re the ones who jumped him when he was coming out of work. But she’s not betting her life, not like this. She drops her phone. She pats him down and flips him over, checking his waistband for a pocketknife. She stands and he stays down.

Kaleb drags Landon’s backpack out from under the blue car where MG threw it. He unzips the backpack and flips it over, letting some Black Panther and Hawkeye comics hit the ground. “Nothing.”

MG rushes toward Landon and Hope swears he’s about to kick him like his head’s a soccer ball, but he grabs my phone off the ground and answers the call “Who are you calling for?” His neck twitch surprises no one. “Hold up, Hold up. I’m not her.  _ Hold up _ . Wait a sec.” He holds out the phone “You want me to hang up, Hope?” 

She doesn’t know. She still has Landon, bloodied and beat, in the parking lot of this elementary school, and it’s not like she needs to take this call to make sure Death-Cast isn’t actually calling to tell her she won the lottery. She snatches the phone from MG, pissed and confused, and she might throw up but her parents and brother and aunts and uncles didn’t so maybe she won’t either.

“Watch him,” She tells MG and Kaleb. They nod. Hope doesn’t know how she became the alpha dog. She ended up in the foster home years after them.

She gives herself some distance, as if privacy actually matters, and makes sure she stays out of the light coming from the exit sign. Not trying to get caught in the middle of the night with blood on her knuckles. “Yeah?”

“Hello. This is Vincent from Death-Cast calling to speak with Hope Micheel-son.”

He butchers her last name, but there’s no point in correcting him. No one else is around to carry the Mikaelson name. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Hope, I regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty-four hours—”

“Twenty-three hours,” she interrupts, pacing back and forth from one end of this car to the other “You’re calling after one.” It’s bullshit. Other Deckers got their alert an hour ago. Maybe if Death-Cast called an hour ago she wouldn’t have been waiting outside the restaurant where freshman-year college-dropout Landon works so she could chase him into this parking lot.

“Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry” Vincent says.

Hope is trying to stay quiet because she doesn’t wanna take her problems out on some guy doing his job, even though she has no idea why the hell anyone applies for this position in the first place. Let’s pretend Hope has a future for a second, entertain her—in no universe is she every waking up and saying “I think I’ll get a twelve to three shift where I do nothing but tell people their lives are over.” But Vincent and others did. She doesn’t want to hear none of that don’t-kill-the-messenger business either, especially when the messenger is calling to tell her she’ll be straight wrecked by the day’s end. 

“Hope, I regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty three hours you’ll be meeting an untimely death. While there isn’t anything I can do to suspend that,I’m calling to inform you of your options for the day. First of all, how are you doing? It took a while for you to answer. Is everything okay?”

He wants to know how she is doing, yeah right. She can hear it in the stunned way he asked her, he doesn’t actually care about her any more than he does the other Deckers he’s gotta call tonight. These calls are probably monitored and he’s not trying to lose his job speeding through this. 

“I don’t know how I’m doing.” Hope squeezes her phone so she doesn’t throw it against the wall painted with little white and brown kids holding hands underneath a rainbow. She looks over her shoulder and Landon is still face-first on the ground as Kaleb and MG stare at me; they better make sure he doesn’t run away before they can figure out what they’re doing with him. “Just tell me my options.” This should be good. 

Vincent tells her the forecast for the day (supposed to rain before noon and later on as well if she makes it that long), special festivals she has zero interest in attending (especially not a yoga class on the high lane, rain or no rain), formal funeral arrangements, and restaurants with the best Decker discounts if she uses today’s code. Hope zones out on everything else because she’s anxious on how the rest of her End Day is going to play out.

“How do you guys know” She interrupts again. Maybe this dude will take pity on her and she can clue MG and Kaleb on this huge mystery. “The End Days. How do you know? Some list? Crystal ball? Calendar from the future?” Everyone stays speculating on how Death-Cast receives this life-changing information. MG told her about all of these crazy theories he read online, like Death-Cast consulting a ban of legit psychosis and a really ridiculous one with an alien shackled to a bathtub and forced by the government to report End Day. There are mad things wrong with that theory, but she doesn’t have time to comment on them right now.

“I’m afraid that information isn’t available to heralds either,” Vincent claims, “We’re all equally curious but it’s not knowledge we need to perform our Jobs.” Another flat answer. Hope bets anything he knows and can’t say if he wants to keep his job.

Screw this guy “Vincent, be a person for one minute. I don’t know if you know, but I’m seventeen. Three weeks from my eighteenth birthday. Doesn’t it piss you off that I’ll never go to college? Get married? Have kids? Travel? Doubt it. You’re just chilling on your little throne in your little office because you know you got another few decades ahead of you, right?”

Vincent clears his throat, “You want me to be a person, Hope? You want me to get off my throne and get real with you? Okay. An hour ago I got off the phone with a woman who cried over how she won’t be a mother anymore after her four-year0old daughter dies today. She begged me to tell her how she can save her daughter’s life, but no one has that power. And then I had to put in a request to the Youth Department to dispatch a cop just in case the mother is responsible, which believe it or not, is not the most disgusting thing I’ve done on the job. Hope I feel for you, I do. But I am not at fault for your death, and I unfortunately have many more of these calls to make tonight. Can you do me solid and cooperate?”

Damn.

Hope cooperates for the rest of the call, even though this dude had no business telling her anyone else’s, but all she can think about is the mother whose daughter will never attend the school right behind me. At the end of the call Vincent gives me that company line she’s grown used to hearing from all the new TV shows and movies incorporating Death-Cast into the characters’ day-to-days: “On behalf of Death-Cast, we are sorry to lose you. Live this day to the fullest.

She can’t tell who hangs up first, but it doesn’t matter. The damage is done—will be done. Today is her End Day, a straight-up Hope Armageddon. She doesn’t know how this is gonna go down. She’s praying she won’t drown like her parents, brother and aunts and uncles. The only person she has done dirty is Landon, for real, so she’s counting on not getting shot, but who knows, misfires happen too. The how doesn’t matter as much as what she does before it goes down, but not knowing is still freaking shaking her; you only die once, after all.

Maybe Landon  _ is _ responsible for this.

Hope walks back over to the three of them fast. She picks up Landon by the back of his collar and then slams him against the brick wall. Blood slider from an open wound on his forehead, and she can’t believe this dude threw her over the edge like this. He should have never run his mouth about all the reasons Maya didn't want me anymore. If that’d never gotten back to Hope, her hand wouldn’t be around his throat right now, getting him even more scared than she is.

“You didn’t ‘beat’ me, okay? Maya didn’t split up with me because of you, so get that out of your head right now. She loved me and we got complicated, and she would’ve taken me back eventually.” She knows this is legit—Kaleb and MG think so too. She leans in on Landon looking him dead-on his only good eye. “I better never see you again for the rest of my life.” Yeah, yeah. Not much life left. But this dude is a fucking clown and might get funny. “You feel me?”

Landon nods.

She lets go of his throat and grabs his phone out of his pocket.

She hurls it against the wall and the screen is totaled. Kaleb stumps it out.

“Get the hell out of here.”

Kaleb grabs her shoulder. “Don’t let him go, He’s got those connections.”

Landon slides along the wall, nervous, like he’s scaling across some windows high up in the city.

Hope shakes Kaleb off her shoulder “I said  _ get the hell out of here _ .”

Landon takes off, running in a dizzying zigzag. He never looks back once to see if they’re coming for him or stops for his comics and backpack.

“I thought you said he’s got friends in some gang,” Kaleb says. “What if they come for you?”

“They’re not a real gang, and he was the gang reject. I have no reason to get scared of a gang that let Landon in. He can’t even call them or Maya, we took care of that,” Hope wouldn’t want him reaching out to Maya before she can. She has to explain herself, and, she may not want to see Hope if she figures out what she did, End Day or not.

“Death-Cast can’t call him either,” MG says, his neck twitching twice.

“I wasn’t going to kill him,”

Kaleb and MG are quiet. They saw the easy she was laying into him, like she had no off button.

Hope can’t stop shaking.

She could’ve killed him, even if she didn’t mean to. She doesn’t know if she could have lived with herself or not if she did end up killing him. Nah, that’s a lie and Hope knows it, she’s just trying to be hard. But she’s not hard. She has barely been able to live with herself for surviving something her family didn’t—something that wasn’t even her fault. There’s no way in Hell she would have been chill with herself for beating someone to death. 

She storms toward their bikes. Her handles are tangled in MG’s wheel from after they chased Landon here, jumping off the bikes to tackle him. “You guys can’t follow me,” she says, picking her bike up. “You get that, right?”

“Nah, we’re with you, just—”

“Not happening” she interrupts. “I’m a ticking time bomb, and even if you’re not blowing up when I do, you might get burnt—maybe literally.”

“You’re not ditching us,” Kaleb says. “Where you go, we go.”

MG nods, his head jerking to the right, like his body is betraying his instinct to follow her. He nods again, no twitch this time.

“You two are straight-up shadows” she says. They give her a confused look. “Because you’re always following me. Loyal to the end”

The end. 

That shuts them all up. They get on their bikes and ride off on the curb, the wheels bumping and bumping. This is the wrong day for Hope to have left her helmet behind.

MG and Kaleb can’t stay with her the entire day, she knows that. But they’re Plutos, bros from the same foster home, and they don’t turn their backs on each other.

“Let’s go home,” she says.

And they’re out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might update more than once in a day, depending of the chapter length, some are very short.


	3. Josie II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short one, but the next one should be a little bit longer, it will be up by tonight or tomorrow. Enjoy

**Josie**

**1:06 a.m**

Josie is back in her bedroom—so much for never returning there again— and immediately she feels better, like getting an extra life in a video game where the final boss was kicking her ass. She’s not naive about dying. She knows it’s going to happen. But she doesn’t have to rush into it. She’s buying herself more time. A longer life is all she’s ever wanted, and she has the power to not shoot that dream in the foot by walking out that front door, especially this late at night. 

She jumps into the bed with the kind of relief you only find when you’re waking up for school and realize it’s Saturday. She throws her blanket around her shoulder, hops back on her laptop, and—ignoring the email from Death-Cast with the time-stamped receipt of her call with Isobel— continues reading yesterday's  _ CountDowners  _ post from before she got the call.

The Decker was twenty-two-year old Tristan. His statuses didn’t provide much context about his life, only that he’d been a loner who preferred runs with his golden retrieve Turbo instead of social outings with his classmates. He was looking to find Turbo a new home because he was pretty sure his father would give ownership of Turbo to the first available person, which could be anyone because Turbo is so beautiful. Hell  _ she _ would’ve adopted him even though she is severely allergic to dogs. But before Tristan gave up his dog, he and Turbo were running through their favorite spots one last time and the feed stopped somewhere in Central Park.

Josie doesn’t know how Keith died. She doesn’t know if Turbo made it out alive or if he died with Tristan. She doesn’t know what would’ve been preferred for Tristan or Turbo. She doesn’t know. She could look into any muggings or murderers in Central Park yesterday around 5:40 p.m, when the feed stopped, but for her sanity this is better left as a mystery. Instead she opens her music folder and plays Space Sounds.

A couple of years ago some NASA team created this special instrument to record the sounds of different planets. At first it sounded weird to her, especially because of all the movies she had watches telling her about how there isn’t any sound in space. Except there is, it just exists in magnetic vibrations. NASA converted them to sounds so the human ear could hear them, and even though Josie was hiding out in her room, she stumbled on something magical from the universe—something those who don’t follow what's trending online would miss out on. Some of the planets sound ominous, like something you’d find in a science fiction movie set in some alien world— “alien world” as in world with aliens, not non-Earth world. Neptune sounds like a fast currency, Saturn has this terrifying howling to it that she never listens to anymore, and the same goes for Uranus except there are harsh winds whistling that sound like spaceships firing lasers at each other. The sounds of the planets make for a great conversation starter if you have people to talk to, but if you don’t, they make for great white noise when you’re going to sleep.

Josie distracts herself from her End Day by reading more  _ CountDowners _ feeds and by playing the Earth track, which always reminds me of soothing birdsong and low sound whales make, but also feels a little bit off, something suspicious she can’t put her finger on, a lot like Pluto, which is both seashell and snake hiss.

She switches back to the Neptune track.


	4. Hope II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, sorry for the delay, I had a headache. Tomorrow's chapter will be shorter, so I might post two or maybe i'll post it today.

**Hope**

**1:18 a.m**

They are riding to Pluto in the dead of the night.

“Pluto” is the name they came up with for the foster home they’re all staying at since their families died or turned their backs on them. Pluto got demoted from planet to dwarf planet, but they would never treat each other as something lesser.

It’s been four months since Hope has been without her family., but MG and Kaleb have been getting cozy with each other for longer. Kaleb’s parents died in a house fire caused by some unidentified arsonist, and whoever it was Kaleb hopes he’s burning in hell for taking away his parents and sister when he was a thirteen-year-old trouble maker no one else wanted except the system, and barely even then. MG’s mom bounced when he was a kid, and his dad ran off three years later when he couldn't keep up with the bills. A month later MG found out his dad had committed sud, and he still hasn’t shed a tear over the guy, never even asked how or where he died.

Even before Hope found out she was dying, she knew home, Pluto, wasn’t gonna be home much longer. Her eighteenth birthday is coming up— same for MG and Kaleb, who both hit eighteen in November. She was college bound like MG, and they figured Kaleb would crash with them as he gets his shit together. Who knows what’s what now, and Hope hastes that she already has an out to those problems. But right now, all that matters is that they are still together. She has Kaleb and MG by her side, like they’ve been from day one when Hope got to the home. Whether it was for family time or bitching sessions, they were always at her left and right.

Hope wasn’t planning on stopping, but she pulls over when she sees the church she came to a month after the big accident—her first weekend out with Maya. The building is massive, with off-white bricks and maroon steeples. She’d love to take a picture of the stained-glass windows, but the flash might not catch it right. Doesn’t matter anyways. If a picture is Instagram worthy, she slaps on the Moon filter for that classic black-and-white effect. The real problem is that Hope doesn't think a photo of a church taken by her unbelieving ass is the best last thing to leave behind for her seventy followers. (Hashtag not happening.)

“What's wrong, Hope?

“This is the church where Maya played the piano for me,” Maya is pretty Catholic, but she wasn’t pushing any of that on Hope. They’d be talking about music, and Hope mentioned digging some of the classical stuff Marcel used to put on when he was studying, and Maya wanted her to hear it live—and wanted to be the one who played it to her. “I have to tell her I got the alert.”

MG twitches, Hope is sure he’s itching to remind her that Maya said she needs space from her, but those kinds of requests get tossed out the window on End Days.

Hope climbs off the bike, throwing down the kickstand. She doesn't go far from MG and Kaleb, just closer to the entrance right as the priest is escorting a crying woman out of the church. The woman is knocking her rings together, like the kind her mom once pawned when she wanted to buy Marcel concert tickets for his thirteenth birthday. This woman has got to be a Decker, or know one. The graveyard shift here is no joke. Kaleb and Mg are always mocking the churches that shun Death-Cast and their “unholy visions from Satan”, but it's dope how some nuns and priests keep busy way past midnight for Deckers trying to repent, get baptized, and all that good stuff.

If there’s a God guy out there like Hope’s mom believed, she hopes he’s got her back right now.

Hope calls Maya. It rings six times before going to voicemail. She calls again and it’s the same thing. Hope tries again, and it only rings three times before going to voicemail. Maya is ignoring her.

She types out a text:  **death-cast called me. maybe you can too.**

Nah, Hope can’t be that big of a dick and send that. 

She corrects herself:  **death-cast called me. can you call me back?**

Her phone goes off before a minute can pass, a regular ring, and not that heart-stopping Death-Cast alert. It's Maya.

“Hey.”

“Are you serious?” Maya sounds scared and angry at the same time.

If Hope weren’t serious, Maya would certainly kill her for crying wolf. MG once played that game for attention and Maya shut it down real fast.

“Yeah. I gotta see you.”

“Where are you?” There’s no edge, she’s not trying to hang up on Hope like she has on recent calls.

“I’m by the church you took me actually” It’s so peaceful, like Hope could stay there all day and make it to tomorrow. “I’m with Kaleb and MG.” 

“Why aren’t you at Pluto? What are you guys doing out on a Monday night?”

Hope needs more time before answering that. Maybe another eighty years, but she doest have that and she doesn’t want to build up the courage to do it right now. “We’re headed back to Pluto now. Can you meet us there?”

“What? No. Stay at the church and I’ll come to you?”

“I’m not dying before I can make it back to you, trust—”

“You are not invincible, dumbass!” Maya is crying now, and her voice is shaking like that time they got caught in the rain without jackets “Ugh, god, I’m sorry, but you know how many Deckers make those promises and then pianos fall on their heads?”

“I’m gonna guess not many,” Hope laughs despite it not being funny. “Death by piano doesn’t seem like a high probability.”

“This is not funny Hope. I’m getting dressed, do not move. I’ll be thirty minutes, tops”

Hope hopes (doesn't she always) that Maya will forgive her for everything, tonight included. Hope will get to her before Landon can, and she’ll tell her side. She’s sure Landon is gonna go home, clean himself up and call Maya off his brother’s phone to tell her what a monster Hope is. He better not call the cops though, or she’ll be spending her End Day behind bars, or maybe find herself on the wrong end of some officer’s club. Hope doesn’t wanna think about any of that, she just wants to get to Maya and say goodbye to the Plutos as the friend they know she is, not the monster she was tonight.

“Meet me at home. Just… get to me. Bye, Maya.”

She hangs up the phone before Maya can protest, gets on her bike, climbing on it as she calls nonstop.

“What’s the plan?” Kaleb asks.

“We’re going to Pluto. You guys are gonna throw me a funeral.”

Hope checks the time: 1:30 a.m.

There is still time for the other Plutos to get the alarm. Hope is not wishing that on them, but maybe she won't have to die alone.

Or maybe that's how it has to be. 


	5. Josie III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOOOOO double update, this one is super short but I promise the next one is actually long.

**Josie**

**1:32 a.m**

Scrolling through  _ CountDowners  _ is a very serious downer. But Josie can’t look away because every registered Decker has a story they want to share. When someone puts their journey out there for people to watch, you pay attention— even if you know they’ll die at the end.

Josie is not going outside, she can be online for others.

There are five tabs on the site—Popular, New, Local, Promoted, Random— and she browses through Local searchers first, as usual, to make sure she doesn’t recognize anyone… No one; good.

It could’ve been nice to have some company today.

Randomly she selects a Decker. Username: Logan_Nevada88. Logan received his call four minutes after midnight and is already out in the world, heading to his favorite bar, where he hopes he doesn’t get carded because he’s a twenty-year-old who recently lost his fake ID. Josie is sure he’ll get through okay. She pins his feed and will receive a chime next time he updates.

Josie switches to another feed. Username: WebMavenMarc. Marc is a former social media manager for a soda company which he’s mentioned twice in his profile, and isn’t sure if his daughter will reach him in time. It’s almost as if this Decker is right in front of her, snapping his fingers at his face.

She has to go visit her mom, even if she’s unconscious. She has to know Josie made her way to him before she died.

Josie puts down her laptop, ignoring the chimes from the couple accounts she has pinned, and goes straight to her Mom’s bedroom. Her bed was unmade the morning she left for work, but Josie has made it for her since then, making sure to tuck the comforter completely under the pillows, as she prefers it. She sites on her side of the bed—the right side, since her other mom always favored the left, and even with her gone she still lives her life in two sides, never writing Jo out— Josie picks up the framed photo of Caroline helping her blow out the candles of her  _ Toy Story _ cake on her sixth birthday. Well her Mom did all the work, Josie was just laughing at her. Caroline says the gleeful look on Josie’s face is why she keeps this picture so close. 

Josie knows it’s sort of strange, but her Mom is just as much as her best friend as Penelope is. She could never admit it out loud without someone making fun of her. But they have always had a great relationship. Not perfect, but she’s sure every two people out there—in her school, in this city, on the other side of the world—struggle with dumb and important things, and the closest pairs just find a way to get over them. Caroline and Josie would never have one of those relationships where they has a falling out and never talked to each other again, not like these Deckers on some  _ CountDowners _ feeds who hate their parents so much they either never visited them on their deathbeds or refused to make amends before they themselves died. Josie slips the photo out of the frame, folds it and puts it in her pocket—the creases won't bother her Mom, she thinks— and gets up to go to the hospital and say her goodbye and make sure this photo is by Caroline’s side when she finally wakes up. She wants to make sure her Mom quickly finds some peace, like it’s an ordinary morning, before someone tells her Josie is gone.

Josie leaves Caroline’s room, pumped to go out and do this, when she sees the stack of dishes in the sink. She could clean those up so her Mom doesn’t come home to dirty plates and mug with impossible stains from all the hot chocolate she has been drinking.

Josie swears that isn’t an excuse not to go outside.

Seriously.

**Author's Note:**

> oh and i'm on twitter @PathButNotAPlan


End file.
